The Fussy Baby Book: Parenting your high-need child from birth to five

We’re in harmony with each other. I nurse an average of eighteen times a day. I know this sounds like a lot of nursing, but there is never a schedule to it. Either she lets me know or I just start it. It always works out. Nursing is never a hassle or bother. It’s just second nature to me. I don’t even think about it or worry about it. It seems like we are always in harmony. We just nurse whenever or wherever Lindsey or I start it.

first-class baby

A lot of this book was written in the peace and quiet of coast-to-coast flights during a year of frequent public speaking. On one flight, when I was fortunate to be upgraded to first class, I identified with a high-need baby who “has it made”. He gets a higher standard of care – he goes first class! The high-need baby gets held more because he protests if he is put down. The high-need baby gets fed more because he demands it. He (usually) enjoys the first-class comfort of sleeping with his parents because he refuses to sleep separate. And, he gets taken to more interesting places because he is unwilling to accept a lower level of care. For high-need babies, life is one continuous upgrade.

“Schedule” is not in the high-need baby’s vocabulary. Early on, these smart infants learn that the breast or bottle is not only a source of nutrition, but also a source of comfort. In fact, research has shown that non-nutritive sucking (sucking for comfort rather than for food) is one of the earliest ways a baby learns to settle. Mothers figure this out quickly and, unfortunately, many of them get their babies hooked on dummies so they can be put down, away from mother, a lot. We prefer that mother use her own finger to give baby extra suck time if he is bottle-fed, or if she knows he doesn’t need any more milk from her breast, or if her breasts need a break.

A recurrent theme that we hear from the parents of high-need babies is “She wants to feed all the time.” Martha’s experience with Hayden is a perfect example. Because our first three babies went an average of three hours between feedings – or even four hours once we added solid food to their diet in the early months – she expected the same from Hayden. Her approach with the first three was to feed them when they cried. But when Hayden cried one hour after being fed, she wondered what to do. Of course, feeding is what Hayden needed, Martha discovered. Yet how could this be? She spent two weeks charting Hayden’s feeding habits in an effort to see what sort of schedule she had. At the end of the two weeks she looked at the chart and concluded that this baby simply didn’t have a schedule. That’s when Martha adopted the slogan “go with the flow”.

Expect baby’s need to nurse to intensify during high-need days when baby will naturally gravitate toward her favourite pacifier and person, which to a breast-fed baby is one and the same. Yes, you will feel like a human dummy or “pacifier”, because you are. Yet, consider that “pacifier” means “peacemaker”. Certainly this is the ultimate goal of parenting the high-need baby: to give this growing infant an internal peace during those tumultuous months after birth, when baby is learning to settle into life; this will help her learn to create inner peace on her own.

Nursing is a wonderful time-out when we are both wearing thin. It alleviates a tightened clash of the wills and provides a calm and loving oasis where we are both refreshed. I am always grateful for prolactin [the breast milk-producing hormone that has a relaxing effect on mother].

Not only do high-need babies breast-feed more frequently, the need for breast-feeding lasts longer. These babies are notoriously slow to wean. They realize that they have a good thing going and that it would be foolish to give it up quickly. It is not unusual for high-need babies (unless forced to wean before their time) to breast-feed at least two years. (See weaning, pages 150–1, for how extended feeding benefits mother and child.)

demanding (#ulink_049a7ed4-02c4-5d8d-b1af-02cf80796772)

High-need babies don’t merely request feeding and holding, they demand it – loudly. This personality trait more than any of the others pushes parents’ buttons, causing them to feel manipulated and controlled. Adults who are stuck in the “parenting equals control” mind-set may have great difficulty realizing that baby’s demands equal communication, not control.

Mothers of high-need babies often say, “I just can’t get to him fast enough.” These babies convey a sense of urgency in their signals; they do not like waiting, and they do not readily accept alternatives. Woe to the parent who offers baby the rattle when he is expecting a breast. He will let you know quickly and loudly that you’ve misread his cues. The concept of “delayed gratification” is totally foreign to infants. It must be sensitively and gradually taught when the child is developmentally ready to learn it.

It may be easier to cope with your baby’s demanding signals if you understand why high-need babies have to be demanding in order to thrive. Suppose baby had high needs but did not have a strong personality to “demand” that these needs get met. Suppose he did not use the kind of persistent cry that ensures a response. This would be a lose-lose situation: baby would not thrive because his needs would not be met, and parents would not get enough practice at cue reading to ever pick up on the baby’s real need level.

If the child feels that she can trust her caregivers, she will eventually learn to make her demands in a more socially acceptable way, rather than overwhelming the whole care-giving environment. With parents who both respond to and wisely channel her demands, the high-need child develops into a person with determination, one who will fight for her rights. The child becomes a leader instead of a follower, one who does not just follow the path of least resistance and do what everyone else is doing. Certainly, our country needs more such citizens.

Although being demanding is the trait of high-need children that is most likely to drive parents bananas, it is also the trait that drives children to succeed and excel. A high-need child with a demanding personality will, if nurtured and channelled appropriately during the formative years, exhaust teachers as she did her parents; yet she will also be able to extract from adult resources, such as teachers, the level of help and education she will need to thrive in academic and social endeavours. This is why it is so important not to squelch an infant’s expressiveness. The ability to know one’s needs and be able to express them comfortably is a valuable tool for success in life.

As the high-need infant grows into a high-need toddler and child, parents must also help her learn that her demands have to be balanced against the needs of others, so that she can learn to be a likable and compassionate person. Helping a demanding infant develop persistence without becoming a controlling person is one of the challenges we will discuss throughout this book.

awakens frequently (#ulink_982258f7-de6c-5f42-898c-419e18a1b466)

“Why do high-need babies need more of everything but sleep?” groaned a tired mother. You would think that high-need babies would need more sleep; certainly their tired parents do. In Chapter 8 we will explain why high-need children sleep differently, and offer nighttime parenting tips for you and your baby. To remedy your own tired feelings, remember what we said previously about living in the “mother zone”.

I have gradually come to realize that she just doesn’t need to sleep, and I can’t force her to do so. The best thing I can do is to continue to provide a nurturing environment conducive to sleep and realize that she will eventually sleep more and so will I.

channelling behaviour versus changing behaviour

Channelling behaviour starts with knowing and accepting the child that you have been given. You use your knowledge of your child’s behaviour to structure your home environment and shape your interactions with your child in such a way that the child’s behavioural traits blossom to his advantage, as well as to his family’s and society’s. This is much healthier and more successful than trying to change your child’s basic nature, trying to reshape him into a behavioural clone of everyone else. High-need children whose behaviour is channelled appropriately may be the leaders of the future. In fact, many people who have contributed positively to society were once high-need children whose behaviour was gently shaped by wise and sensitive parents. Many people who have grown up to harm society have been high-need children who were not recognized or nurtured. A high need that is unmet may reappear later as a less healthy need, one that is difficult to meet in a socially acceptable fashion. A high need that is met early is more likely to reappear later as a positive quality for the child, one that works to his advantage. A mother who recognized early that she had a high-need infant and worked hard to channel that child’s behaviour confided to me, “Early on, I knew this child had the potential to be either a criminal or President.”

unsatisfied (#ulink_d972275a-a624-51f3-af7a-c2e0c728a9ee)

Not being able to satisfy a baby’s needs is very frustrating for parents of high-need babies. It seems like a direct attack on your abilities. After all, isn’t a contented baby the hallmark of effective mothering? Wrong! There will be days when you feed, rock, walk, drive, wear, and try every comforting technique known to man or woman, and nothing will work. Don’t take this as a sign of failure. You do the best you can, and the rest is up to the baby. You have not failed as a mother even if your baby is miserable much of the time. This is partly his personality and partly his immature nervous system still in need of being organized. Meanwhile, keep experimenting with one comforting tool after another, and you will eventually discover one that works – at least for that day. Then you will feel like a genius! Keep your detective hat on to find clues to your baby’s discomfort (see here (#litres_trial_promo) and here (#litres_trial_promo)). Constant trial and error is how you build up your baby-soothing abilities.

unpredictable (#ulink_094c4307-92a0-5308-be24-43798aacca74)

It’s frustrating to realize that what worked yesterday doesn’t work today. “Just as I think I am winning, he ups the stakes”, a baffled mother confided. High-need babies are inconsistently appeased because their nervous systems are poorly organized. You will need lots of variety in your bag of comforting tricks.

Rocking, walking, using carriers, singing lullabies, tummy position, back position, side position, infant seats, dummies, tilting the mattress of the bed, bringing him to bed with us, cuddling him on breasts or bare chest, bathing him just before sleep time, hot water bottles wrapped inside a fake fur animal, letting him stay awake until midnight before bedtime routines, starting right after dinner, letting him cry, not letting him cry – nothing seemed to work. Some of these things worked some of the time; nothing worked all the time. This is very frustrating; you wonder what you are doing wrong.

your baby’s temperament

“Temperament” describes the basic emotional wiring of your baby. How your baby expresses her unique wiring is through her personality. What kind of person your child becomes depends on her inborn temperament (nature) and your responses to it (nurture). Temperament is not “good” or “bad”; it is simply the way your baby is. A vital part of living with your baby’s temperament is to know how to respond to it. There will be times you need to mellow a fussy baby or perk up a laid-back one.

It’s important to know not only the temperament of your baby but yours too. Parent and baby need to find a way to fit. This little word so economically describes the relationship between parent and baby. Some pairs fit together more easily, while some mothers and fathers and their babies have to make a few adjustments along the way to improve the fit. If your baby has high needs and a persistent personality that demands that those needs be met, and you are a person who loves to be in control and to have your life run in a smooth, predictable routine, you and your baby will both have to do some adjusting. It may be easier for a laid-back mother who by nature “goes with the flow” to cope with the unpredictable demands of a high-need baby.

The goal of parenting a high-need baby is to allow baby and parent to shape each other’s behaviour so that personalities mesh rather than clash, and eventually you will bring out the best in each other.

A responsive, flexible, nurturing mother is a good match for a high-need baby. This baby challenges the mother’s abilities and keeps her interested in her job, while the mother mellows the baby’s temperament by helping her feel right most of the time. The attachment style of parenting really pays off in developing a good fit. The hours you spend each day in high-touch, responsive parenting will naturally help you and your baby fit. Initially, you may have to work at it, but you will be surprised how the fit develops naturally – as long as you practise a responsive style of parenting that lets it happen. When mother and infant fit, they will roll smoothly along the road of life together; if they fit poorly, the road is likely to be bumpy.

Along with their unpredictability, these children show extremes of mood swings. When happy, they are a joy to be around; they are master charmers and people pleasers. When angry, they let everyone around them feel the heat.

The child’s unpredictability makes your day unpredictable. Do you take him shopping and risk a mega-tantrum when his first grocery grabs are thwarted, or will this be a day when he is the model shopping-trolley baby, charming everyone at the checkout counter?

When he is happy, he is the happiest baby around, but when he is angry he is the worst baby around. He is still that way, sunshine and smiles, anger and daggers. He has no middle emotion.

We have a theory that certain types of children show up in families that have certain areas in which they need to grow. When Hayden came along, our life had settled into a level of predictability that was quite comfortable, possibly heading for the “stale” category. We had three sons, easygoing types who liked sports and eagerly marched to the beat of the drummer in our family (Bill). We had similar interests professionally – we worked in paediatric settings, pursued writing together, and Martha’s interest in childbirth education and breast-feeding counselling fitted right into our paediatric setting. If Hayden hadn’t come along to introduce us to unpredictability, our work as authors would probably have begun and ended with one book (and even that one book might have turned out to be “plain vanilla”). Meeting the challenge of this “different” baby forced us to discover our creative selves. Hayden taught us that life with a high-need child is never boring.

supersensitive (#ulink_37306578-8b32-554f-acd5-b80102f4b72f)

High-need babies are keenly aware of the goings-on in their environment. “Easily bothered”, “quickly stimulated”, “like walking on eggshells” is how parents describe their sensitive babies. High-need babies prefer a secure and known environment, and they are quick to protest when their equilibrium is upset. They startle easily during the day (for example, we learned not to turn on the blender if Hayden was anywhere nearby) and settle with difficulty at night. While you can carry on normal family life without waking most sleeping infants, these babies often awaken at the slightest noise. These supersensitive infants are unlikely to accept substitute caregivers willingly.

This acute sensitivity to their environment can become a rewarding asset as a high-need child grows. These children are more “tuned in” to what is going on around them. Their keen awareness stimulates their curiosity, which in turn stimulates learning. They are not distant children. They become kids who care, more easily bothered by another child’s hurts. Most develop empathy, a quality that is lacking in many of today’s teens and adults. Because these children are so sensitive, they develop great discernment and are able to consider the effects of their behaviour on the feelings of others. They are able to achieve one of the ultimate qualities of self-discipline: the ability to think through what they’re about to do.

strive for balance

Many new mothers and fathers start parenting believing they must be in control of their child. Or, they may be the product of controlling parents themselves and have vowed not to do anything to squelch their child’s personality. Both extremes cripple a child. Putting the lid on a child’s personality stunts the child’s emotional growth. Letting a child’s emotions and character traits go unguided risks having the child turn out wild and lacking in self-control. Aim for a balance. Children need to be comfortable expressing their needs, yet high-need children need a high level of guidance to express themselves appropriately.

For the sake of your child, and yourself, in the early weeks of parenting, unload the baggage of your “control mind-set” and learn to give freely. When you have opened yourself up to be flexible enough to keep working at a style of parenting that helps all family members thrive, control will no longer be an issue. Without the stifling baggage of control hindering your intuitive parenting, you will be free to guide your child, channelling his personality traits to work to his advantage and to the advantage of the family.

Supersensitive babies react in a big way to physical and emotional discomforts. They let you know, in no uncertain terms, they hurt and they need help – now!

He cries in protest when the littlest thing is not right with him. He is so sensitive. Whenever he has a cold, he cries and whines, and needs to be held constantly. He wails when he has an ear infection. At his nine-month check-up, I recall our paediatrician saying, “Wow! So much anger for such a little baby.” I think he was just angry that his teeth hurt.

Though upsetting to your ears and frustrating to your sensitive heart, supersensitive babies are at least easier to read. They let you know when they need help or when something should be changed in their care-giving environment. Their signals cannot go unnoticed.

traits with a silver lining

A unique feature of high-need children is that what appears to be a “negative” personality trait can turn out to be positive. For every hour of sleep you lose in the early years, you are likely to get an extra hour of sleep when the child is a teen. For every ounce of distress the infant gives you, you are likely to get back at least an equal amount of delight. The same behavioural traits that earn these infants various negative labels are the ones that help their personality blossom. Early on, it’s normal for parents to be overwhelmed with the negatives: loss of freedom, loss of sleep, and loss of energy. (See Chapter 7, “Mother Burnout”.) Yet the sooner you can turn these negative attitudes into positive ones, the easier living with your high-need child will become. Don’t think of your child as a difficult sleeper; think of her as active or alert. Don’t think of him as clingy; think of him as a baby who values being with you. This is a tough challenge, one that requires self-discipline, but the rewards are great. Try to spend as much of your day focusing on the uniqueness of your child, identifying and reinforcing the child’s positive character traits so that they will work to the child’s advantage, and to yours. In addition, you’ll get the added bonus of learning, by necessity, to take better care of yourself – a life skill that will benefit your whole family.

unable to be put down (#ulink_a0318197-62db-5b26-9e68-85069f918d92)

High-need babies crave touch: skin-to-skin contact in your arms, at your breasts, in your bed. They extract whatever physical contact they can from their caregivers. They also crave motion. Holding is not enough; the holder must keep moving. If the holder wants to sit down, it had better be on something that rocks, glides, or swings. This constant holding may be particularly difficult for new parents who expected to have the magazine-model baby, the one who lies quietly in the cot gazing at fancy mobiles. This is not the play profile of the high-need baby. Parents’ arms and bodies are his cot; mother’s breasts are his pacifier; and a bouncing lap is his chair. Most high-need babies choose to upgrade their accommodations from the cot or playpen to the baby sling. They like to be worn many hours a day because they like the physical contact and they like to be up where the action is. Smart babies.

uncuddly (#ulink_d48889d4-6700-5372-a08a-d95ff419b8d0)

While most high-need babies are super-cuddly and crave being held, some are slower to warm up and often receive the label “uncuddly”. It could be that this behaviour is caused by extreme sensitivity, which causes them to perceive handling as unsettling or threatening. It is important for the parent to stay calm and relaxed. Babies like this need careful handling that avoids over-stimulation and gradually desensitizes them to touch. Eventually, most will become accustomed to relaxed touching and holding. Some uncuddly babies continue to resist close physical contact, being closely contained in the sling, or spending long periods of time in one person’s arms. They also protest being swaddled. These are the babies who need more space and floor time. The uncuddly babies are the most difficult of high-need babies because they don’t melt and mould rewardingly into the arms of their caregivers. If you have a baby who is initially uncuddly, don’t take it personally. These babies are simply slower to warm up to physical contact. Many of them eventually ease into the high-touch style of parenting that their high-need colleagues have learned to enjoy.

From the beginning Gennie seemed to be extremely sensitive. After nursing, she would pull away from me. At night she did not want to be touched at all. She would not make eye contact with anyone. When she began to smile or “talk”, it was only to inanimate objects (like a doll) at first.